Brian Aldiss - The Complete Short Stories - The 1950s

He received a withering glare from the priest. ‘An accident happened,’ the latter said tersely.

‘It seems likely the ship left Procyon without the present ponic tangle,’ said Viann. ‘We believe all parts of the ship were clear and could communicate with each other.’

Carappa struck his fist on the table, rattling the empty dishes. ‘Some terrible wrong of our forefathers!’ he exclaimed.

There was a brief knock at the door and a messenger entered, giving the customary greeting, which Master Scott returned. He said he was a runner who had gone with the warriors deputed to follow Bob Crooner. Crooner had dived into the ponic tangle but had gone only a few yards before stopping in a side corridor. There he had pulled the ponic stalks aside with his bare hands, torn out their roots and scooped away the nine inches or so of decayed vegetable matter which covered the floor. After a little searching, he located what he was looking for, and opened up a circular hatch. He rapidly climbed down into this and disappeared, closing the hatch after him.

‘Well?’ Scott demanded of the runner. ‘And then?’

‘I was then despatched with this report, sir,’ said the runner. ‘The warriors stayed guard over the place. In a day, it would be covered by new ponic sprouts.’

‘The aliens cannot live under the floor between levels,’ Scott said, frowning. ‘We had better go there straightaway and investigate. What say you, Viann?’

‘Ready,’ she said, throwing her head up as if scenting battle, and patting her dazer. ‘You two had better come with us,’ she added to the priest and Brandyholm. The latter looked dubiously at Carappa, who nodded eagerly.

‘Take your report to the Council of Five, tell them we have gone ahead and ask them to hold men in readiness,’ Scott snapped to the messenger.

He left the room at the double, the others following. They ran along a short passage, clattered down a companionway and branched thence into the corridor along which Crooner had escaped. The trail of broken ponics was easy to follow, and in five minutes they stood beside three armed men, gazing down at the round bolt hole.

‘Whoever enters there first risks getting shot,’ Viann remarked speculatively.

‘Alas that the hole is too small for me to enter at all,’ Carappa said hastily.

‘Open it up, you, and go and see what’s down there,’ Master Scott motioned to one of the men.

‘Er – yes, sir. Can’t we put the lights out along here?’ the man said, rubbing his hands nervously together.

‘We shall see if that will be necessary. Hurry!’

Reluctantly, the man dropped onto hands and knees, pulled up the hatch, and instantly fell onto his face. Nothing happened. He picked himself up sheepishly and dangled one leg into the aperture. It remained attached to his body, and encouraged by an expletive from Scott he lowered himself down. From above, his unkempt head could be seen to bob down and disappear. Then it reappeared, he tilted his face up and called, ‘He’s not here. This is a sort of corridor, about two feet high. Now can I come up?’

At Scott’s signal, the fellow’s companions hauled him roughly out. Unhooking a flat torch from his belt, Scott looked briefly at his companions.

‘Coming?’ he asked, with a crooked smile, and climbed down into the bolt-hole.

This spot was actually a kind of crossroads for two of the inspection walks which were concealed beneath every floor of the ship. Sandwiched here, between deck and deck, were the vessel’s vital parts, the countless miles of wire and cable and pipe and air channel which made life possible. Sealed away, these shallow, essential areas had escaped the spreading menace of the ponics; and so a sort of survival had been possible.

Scrutinising the four low walks stretching away from him, Scott instantly determined the way Crooner had taken: only one walk had its thin layer of dust disturbed by a pattern of hands, knees and feet created by a hurrying man. Dim lights lit each walk. Scott sheathed his torch and started off on all fours, without bothering to wait for the others. Viann followed him, then Brandyholm, then Carappa, who slipped in nimbly enough when he looked like being left behind.

Progress, being on hands and knees, was not rapid; but Scott forged grimly ahead, ignoring the colour codes painted on the various bulky casing which hemmed their route. The scuffled pattern in the dust stretched encouragingly before him. Once, following this trail, they turned through ninety degrees and still proceeded.

‘I never realised before how confoundedly big this ship was,’ grumbled Carappa.

The trail ended at last, in a dead end – at the outer skin of the ship, although they could not realise that. Feeling above his head, Scott located another trap door. This was a more complicated affair than the one by which they had entered the system of subterranean walks, possessing a double, self-closing hatch.

‘Well?’ Scott asked Viann, sliding round to face her. ‘Do we go up?’

‘Wait!’ she gasped. ‘I’m exhausted. No stomach or breath to fight!’

‘You do well for a woman,’ he said harshly, and kissed her shining face in a gesture which held more encouragement than tenderness.

It felt to Brandyholm as if a knife had been twisted in his heart. He was suddenly swamped with jealousy and hatred of this man Scott.

‘Let’s get on with the work!’ he said thickly.

‘Hark, the yokel!’ Viann said amusedly, but slid to one side as Brandyholm wriggled past her. He pushed past Scott and, reaching up his arms, flung back first the lower then the upper hatch. Then he thrust his head up.

They heard him give an inarticulate cry, and then he slithered back among them, gasping. Viann caught his shoulders and held his head in the crook of her arm.

‘Dazers!’ snapped Scott. ‘Come on, or they’ll murder us down here!’

With a bound, he was out of the walk, his weapon thrust before him. He too gave a strangled cry. As they scrambled out to him, they heard his dazer drop from a suddenly limp hand and clang on the metal floor. Then they too saw what he saw, and knew.

The ship’s starboard emergency escape lock was empty but for the four of them. Large enough to house a half-dozen lorries, it was furnished only with escape equipment stored along one wall. Dominating everything, compelling their owed gaze, was the window by the outer door: beyond it, plumbless, eternal, stars tossed into it like pebbles into an immeasurable sack, was space.

They were the first inhabitants of the ship for many generations to look into that mighty void. Together, they sank to their knees and stared. Everything was forgotten but that spectacle.

To one side of the window from where they were, riding majestically in space, was a bright crescent. Upon its surface, although sheathed under a veil of silver, continents and sea were visible. To their unaccustomed eyes, it was a thing of magnificent terror – yet in the terror was a wild gong beat of hope.

For a lifetime of seconds, the four absorbed that panorama together. Viann was the first to recover. She walked slowly over to the window and said, ‘So we have, after all, arrived somewhere!’

Looking at her proud head outlined against the brilliant sweep of that crescent, Brandyholm thought feverishly to himself that both contained a magic he desired: woman and world, for a moment both were the same thing, a joy unattainable, a hope out of reach, symbols merely of all opportunities denied.

‘Our man went out there somewhere,’ the practical Scott said, pointing to the line of Crooner’s footprints which went right up to the outer door. ‘If we want to follow him, we have to go out there too. What say you, Viann?’

‘Why did they not construct more ports in this ship? This is the first to be found, except for the shuttered ports in the control room.’